Bruin Bites: Coach Mora Doesn't Care About the College Football Playoff

When Coach Jim E. Mora was the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, he was asked after one game about his team's chances of making the playoffs. In a scene that has been played over and over hundreds of times because it was used in a Coors beer commercial, the elder Mora went off.

On Saturday, at his camp wrap-up press conference, UCLA Head Coach Jim L. Mora didn't meltdown like his dad did, but like his dad, he clearly did not want to discuss playoffs. In this case, he was asked by a reporter if he was excited about the first year of the College Football Playoff.

He responded by calmly saying, "I don't care about the College Football Playoff. I care about tomorrow." He added, "I don't care to talk about it. I don't care about it. It's not in the equation right now. All I care about is being better tomorrow than we were today. That's all that matters to this football team."

You can see this and the entire presser courtesy of Jack Wang of InsideSocal.com.

In other news, Chris Foster at the LA Times has an article on discussing the defensive player rotation. In it, he talks about how Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich plans to rotate linebackers frequently in an attempt to keep players fresh as the season rolls on. He quotes Ulbrich:

We're going to rotate more than we have in the past. You look around at some defenses that are paired [against] tempo offenses, I think it's necessary that you start to rotate guys. Those teams are healthier towards the end of the season, and they are fresher.

Foster goes on to mention that Coach Meat plans to do the same thing with the secondary.

This is a great example of what having good depth can do for a football team. It means that more guys can play and, heaven forbid, something happens to one guy, someone else is ready to step up and fill the role.

To wrap up this morning, I want to mention another article from Chris Foster which Bruinette mentioned in comments the other day. He spoke with Mr. Aikman about Brett Hundley's decision to return. Basically, Aikman said that he thought it was a good idea for him to return to UCLA because it gives him another year of running an offense.

Aikman also addressed the potential Hundley and the Bruins have this year saying:

It's been a while since we've had a player of his caliber or had the attention on the program. I guess it goes back to probably when Cade McNown was there, the last time UCLA had that kind of attention and these kinds of expectations.

Expectations indeed.

The Bruins continue their preparation for the season this week at Spaulding Field. While it was originally announce that practices this week would be open to the public, that's changed and practices this week have been closed to the public.

That will do it for this Monday morning.

Go Bruins!